Scary Stuff on the Printed and Digital Page

Format: NookBook, Kindle, and other digital formats Publisher: Pulp 2.0 Press Publication Year: 197? I sooooo wanted to like this one. While I’ve never been able to slog through Mary Shelly’s original novel, I’ve long been a fan of the many incarnations of Frankenstein. From the moody black and white of the Universal classics, through … Continue reading »

Format: NOOKbook Publisher: Prime Books Publication Year: 2010 Every time I read something by David Schow I get the impression he is trying desperately to impress the reader with his flashy prose and vocabulary. In this case the very title of the story “Obsequy” (a funeral rite or ceremony) sent me scrambling for the dictionary. … Continue reading »

Format: Nook Book Publisher: Permuted Press Publication Year: 2011 Yes, I’m having a love affair with my Nook. Some would say it’s a relationship that borders on the unnatural, but that’s a tale for another day. But what’s not to love? Online book shopping with instant gratification, prices ranging from reasonable to crazy cheap, and … Continue reading »

Format: Musty old mass market paperback Publisher: Pocket Books Publication Year: 1979 I tackled John Russo’s 1979 slasher novel The Majorettes as an experiment. I had first read and enjoyed the book around 1980 or so and I wanted to see how well it had held up. I was initially attracted back in the day … Continue reading »

For “Zora and the Zombie,” author Andy Duncan eschews the Romero style zombie for the more traditional Hatian type. Duncan presents a fictionalized version of real-life author Zora Neale Hurston as she travels Haiti researching local legends including voodoo and zombies. During a voodoo ritual she finds less than convincing, Zora is told of a … Continue reading »

Format: trade paperback Publisher: Avant Punk – an imprint of Eraserhead Press (www.avantpunk.com) Publication Year: 2008 Author Carlton Mellick and the folks at Eraserhead Press certainly deserve points for salesmanship. The title and cover leaped out at me as I was perusing horror books at Amazon. I mean, take a look at that artwork. What … Continue reading »

Format: multiple ebook formats (I read the epub version) Publisher: Bitter Ale Press Publication Year: 2011 This is a first for me. Between the time I purchased this book last week and the time I finished it last night, Bryan Smith’s latest novel, self-published as an ebook only, has undergone a title change. Smith gives … Continue reading »

In Nik Houser‘s “First Kisses From Beyond the Grave,” Zack Henry has been transferred to a new high school, thanks to an epic clerical error. His new alma mater, Purgatory High, is populated by dead teens whose souls are in all manner of unrest. Vampires, ghosts, and zombies make up the student body, including a … Continue reading »

Max Brooks is, of course, the author of the bestselling books World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, and The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead. Combine this with the fact that his father Mel Brooks wrote and directed Young Frankenstein, and you see why this guy has some … Continue reading »

“Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed” by Steve Duffy is a tale of zombies on the high seas. Three buddies, one with girlfriend in tow, take the fishing vessel Katie Mae out for an after dark cruise, seeking a secluded spot to down some beers and fire up a few joints. The party is interrupted when they … Continue reading »